Last Snow

EIGHT

“THIS IS why I know Karl is the man you seek.” Dyadya Gourdjiev snared a cookie between two fingers free of the crooks and unnatural bends of arthritis. As he contemplated it, he turned it, revealing first the top, then the bottom. “Politicians,” he said. “Your senator and Karl, two sides of the same coin, pulled inexorably together even from opposite sides of the world.”

The old man gave the cookie to Alli then, taking another, popped it into his mouth whole, crunching on it happily. When he’d swallowed the last crumbs, he continued, “Your senator—what was his name again?”

“Lloyd Berns,” Jack offered.

“Yes, your Senator Berns would have had to meet with Karl if he wanted to get anything accomplished in Ukraine.” He cocked his head. “Have you any idea why the senator was in Kiev?”

“So far as anyone knows, he was here on a Senate fact-finding mission, but his very last appointment was with K. Rochev,” Jack said, “and it wasn’t official, which is what caught my attention.”

The old man eyed him carefully, listening perhaps for a misstep on Jack’s part—if, for instance, Jack had said “what caught our attention,” which would have given him the opening to ask who, precisely, Jack worked for. As a lifetime forger, he was not in the habit of asking such questions outright.

“Then it’s Karl you want to speak with.” He stood and walked across to a hand-rubbed rosewood table with cabriole legs as delicate as a fawn’s. For a moment, he rummaged through some papers until he found a much earmarked address book. He didn’t look like the kind of man to rely on Outlook. He made two quick phone calls, then turned back to his guests.

“As I suspected, you won’t find him at the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, our parliament. Likewise, it would avail you nothing to seek him out at home; you’d find only his wife and his mother, though, in truth, there’s little to distinguish them.” He shook his head. “No, if history is prelude to the present, today being Friday, Karl will be with his current mistress. He will be with her all weekend.”

“Do you know her name or where he might be keeping her?” Jack asked.

“As I said, Karl and I haven’t been in touch for years. It’s a curious thing with longtime compatriots in their old age, they sometimes have a falling out. Ours was quite bitter. He’s dead to me. However, all is not lost, Mr. McClure, if I can find a certain number.” He paged through the book, moistening his forefinger every so often to ease the process. “Ah, here it is. Milla Tamirova.” Reaching for a pencil, he wrote a few lines on a scratch pad, ripped off the top sheet and, turning back, handed it to Jack. “Milla Tamirova was Karl’s mistress at the time he and I parted ways. I very much doubt that she still is, since he changes girls like other people rotate the tires on their cars. But she might know who his current one is.”

“Why would she know that?” Jack asked.

“All of Karl’s mistresses came from one stable.”

“Why bother paying?” Alli asked. “So far as I can see there seem to be a hundred willing girls for every man in Moscow and I imagine the same’s true here.”

The old man smiled as he wagged a finger at her. “A clever one here. Of course, there’s a reason. The stable mistress trains all the girls in different, er, disciplines.”

“Your friend’s into fetishes,” Alli said without blinking an eye.

“Well, well.” For a moment, Dyadya Gourdjiev seemed at a loss for words, or perhaps he was busy reassessing the young woman he’d mistaken for a childlike adolescent. “And what do you know of fetishes, young lady?”

“That there’s at least one to satisfy every possible psychological itch.”

“Indeed.” Dyadya Gourdjiev stood with his hands clasped behind his back. “Karl’s into bondage, serious stuff, very unpleasant.”

“Not for everyone,” Alli said so dryly she drew a sharp look from Annika.

“Clearly not,” Jack said, already troubled by Alli’s interjections, which illuminated a topic she’d never brought up with him. “If you’ll allow me to use the phone, I’ll call her right now.”

“I don’t think that’s the best idea,” Annika said.

Dyadya Gourdjiev nodded. “I agree. A woman like that is highly likely to be suspicious of a man like you.”

“Let me do it,” Alli said.

Jack snorted. “Yeah, right.” He waved a hand. “Forget that. It’s bad enough you’re here altogether.” He held out the paper the old man had given him. “Annika, you make the call.”

Alli snatched the paper before Annika could take it. She stood in front of Jack with her legs planted firmly on the carpet. “Listen to me. This woman will get suspicious of anyone wanting to know where her former lover is now. I mean she might not respond at all or if she does she might give us a bum address or if she gives us the right one she could call him the minute we leave.”

“Alli, stop this nonsense right now—”

Dyadya Gourdjiev took a step toward her. “Mr. McClure, what harm is there in allowing Alli to finish her thought?”

“I don’t want her involved in this.”

The old man shrugged. “It appears to me that she’s already involved.”

Alli grabbed the ensuing shocked silence by the horns. “Look,” she said, excited now, “I call Milla Tamirova—”

“And say what?” Jack asked. “You don’t even speak Russian.”

“No matter,” Dyadya Gourdjiev said. “Milla speaks perfect English.” He rubbed two fingers against his thumb. “And why not? English is the language of money.”

“I’m going to tell her that I’m his daughter and I need protection.” Alli went over to where Dyadya Gourdjiev stood, as if seeking protection from Jack’s further protests. “That’s why I need to find him.”

She picked up the phone.

“I’VE SLAVED your cell phone to mine,” Jack said. “So just press the Two button if you get into trouble.”

“I’m not going to get into trouble,” Alli said. “I can take care of myself.”

He knew that wasn’t an idle threat. One of the things he’d been doing with her was training her in physical combat. She was a quick learner, which was no surprise to him, since she’d been athletic in college. Emma had taken him to see her in several track meets. He’d also taught her how to shoot a pistol; they’d spend an hour twice a week at the ATF firing range in Virginia.

“If you get into trouble,” he repeated, “I’m only a floor away.” He tapped the butt of the Mauser Dyadya Gourdjiev had given him, along with a box of bullets.

They were on the second floor of Milla Tamirova’s building on Andrivyivsky Spusk, a beautiful street filled with markets, steepled churches, and tiered wedding-cake buildings that wound its way up from the lower part of the city, known as Podil, to the upper city. Rochev’s former mistress occupied a corner apartment on the third floor. She refused to speak over the phone. In fact, it appeared that she was about to hang up, but once Alli broke down in tears, her voice quavering pathetically, she had agreed to see Alli. When did Alli learn to cry on cue, Jack asked himself as he watched her work over Tamirova like a champion boxer.

“And don’t get cocky, okay?”

She stared at him steadily now. “Okay.”

As she turned away to sprint up the iron fire stairs, Jack took her elbow and gently turned her back to him. “Alli, are you sure you want to do this? We can find another way—”

“I’m so sure, Jack.” Her gaze met his without guile. “Besides, it’s already set up.”

Then she gave him a quick grin. “You don’t want to queer the pooch.”

This response caught Jack flat-footed. For the first time since Emma’s death, the spark of life had returned to Alli. She was visibly excited about using her skills, being part of something other than the hurt and pain that soaked through her insides. It was at this moment that Jack understood something about her that her entire battery of doctors had missed: What she needed more than anything else was to be drawn outside herself, to be engaged by the world, to be given a challenge, to feel once again her own expertise. Morgan Herr had taken away her sense of control. Jack saw that from the moment she had formed this plan she had set herself on the road to regaining what had been snatched from her, what now mattered most to her.

He nodded to her and smiled. Kissing her cheek, he let her go, watching her scamper up the steps with a newfound energy.

“I hope to God you know what you’re doing,” Annika said.

Jack’s gaze was fixed on the place on the stairs where Alli had vanished. “That makes two of us.”

MILLA TAMIROVA opened the door the instant Alli knocked. She must have been waiting at the door. She was another in a long line of Slavic blondes with magnificent bone structure, porcelain skin, cornflower blue eyes, and breasts with no need of being inflated with silicon. She had the kind of feral, predatory face men found irresistible, at least around the bedroom, which meant that she wore her sexuality outside her skin. Alli despised her on sight.

Nevertheless, she smiled winningly as she stood on the threshold, aware that the older woman was scrutinizing her as if she were a frog pinned to a board, its insides exposed for study.

“Pajalyste chawdeetzye,” Tamirova said, taking an abrupt step back. “Oh, forgive me, I forget that you don’t speak Russian. Please come in.”

She continued to peer at Alli as she shut the door and led her guest into a tastefully furnished room full of chintz and striped satin fabrics. Heavy drapes half covered the windows, the furniture was large and looked deep enough to get lost in, which, Alli thought, was probably the point.

Tamirova, her painted lips moving softly, said, “I find it odd that a child of Karl’s wouldn’t speak Russian.”

“I was brought up in America,” Alli said with an ease that amused her almost as much as lying to her doctors. “It’s only recently that I found out my origins—a photo, a name, a date, and a street name. I Googled it and came up with Kiev.”

The scrutiny clearly over, Tamirova raised her arm. “Sit down. Please.” She spoke English almost as well as Annika, one of many languages, she said, part of her training to be all things to all clients. She wore a long sea green robe of some material that both clung to her slim curves and seemed to foam around her ankles, which were strapped into high-heeled shoes. Who wears high-heeled shoes when they’re home, Alli asked herself.

When they were comfortably settled, Milla Tamirova said, “Have you any idea who your mother is?”

“Not a clue,” Alli lied without hesitation. She cocked an eyebrow. “You’re not my mother, are you?”

“Heavens, no!” Milla Tamirova chuckled deep in her throat. “I’ve never been pregnant—well, except one time and then, you know . . .”

“Don’t you ever think of what that baby would have been like?”

“I wouldn’t have been a good mother, I don’t have—what do you call it in English—?”

“A conscience?”

“A maternal instinct.” A small smile played around her full lips. “Perhaps someday you’ll understand.”

“I hope to Christ I never do.”

“Is that what they teach you in America? Religion?” She lifted a hand. Her nails were longer than Annika’s. “You can’t be more than fifteen or sixteen.”

“I’m twenty-two.”

“Good lord!” Milla Tamirova stared at her without seeming comprehension.

“I need to use the bathroom,” Alli said.

“Down the hall, second door on the left,” the older woman said as if still in a trance or plunged deep in thought.

Alli made use of the bathroom, flushed the toilet, ran water over her hands and dried them. Then she did a bit of reconnoitering. She saw Milla Tamirova’s bedroom directly across the hall, lushly feminine and inviting, except to Alli, who was revolted. Further down, where a second bedroom might logically be, was a closed door. Alli stood in front of it for a moment then, reaching out, turned the faceted glass doorknob. And came upon the dungeon.

Along the left wall was an array of whips and crops of all kinds, made of different materials. Below it, an assortment of manacles linked by chains. In front of this display was a Western saddle, complete with stirrups and cinch, thrown over a custom-made sawhorse. In the center of the right wall was a floor-to-ceiling mirror, on either side three tiers of dummy heads on each of which was a full-head mask of either leather or black latex. Below each one, lined up like little red soldiers, were what she knew were gag balls. The one small window had been blacked out and was covered with thick metal grillwork straight out of The Count of Monte Cristo.

This regimental exhibit was unsettling enough, but it was the object in the center of the room that riveted her attention: a massive wooden armchair bolted to the floorboards. On each arm and on each of the front legs was a leather restraint with metal buckle. The sight of the chair, so similar to the one Morgan Herr had tied her into for the better part of a week, gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Do the tools of my trade interest you?” Milla Tamirova leaned against the open doorway. She had lit a cigarette while Alli was in the bathroom, and now she exhaled a cloud of pale smoke toward the high ceiling.

Alli couldn’t take her eyes off the chair, which both repelled and fascinated her. The atmosphere seemed saturated with sweat and sexual musk. “I want you to tell me about this.”

“The mechanics of bondage are simplicity itself.”

“Forget the mechanics.” Alli circled the chair as if in a death spiral. “I want to know about the psychology of it.”

Milla Tamirova, smoking slowly, studied her for some time. “It’s not about sex, you know.”

“It’s about power, right?”

“No,” the older woman said, “it’s about control, gathering it to you and letting it go.”

Alli turned to look at her. “Control.” She said this as if it were a word that Milla Tamirova had invented, one that was as potentially fascinating as it was inscrutable.

Tamirova nodded. “That’s right.”

“Give me an example.”

Milla Tamirova seemed to flow, rather than walk, into the dungeon. “Take this chair, for instance. The client is strapped in. He begs to be released, I ignore him. He says he’ll do whatever I want and I say, ‘Anything? Anything at all?’ and he nods his head, eager, avid, greedy, even, for the punishment I will mete out.”

A loathsome shiver crawled down Alli’s spine. She felt as if she were witnessing the beginning of an accident, a car crash, perhaps, the two vehicles heading toward each other at high speed.

“Why?” she said in a whisper. “Why do they do it?”

“Why does anyone do anything? Because it feels good.” Milla Tamirova exhaled noisily, like a horse or a dragon. “But that isn’t what you’re asking, is it?”

“No.”

“Mmm.” The older woman circled the chair, or perhaps it was Alli she was circling, as if drawn by a desire to see all sides. “These men are very powerful. They spend their days at the top of a pyramid of power, barking out orders to those groveling around them. Strange to say, they find this state of affairs enervating—all these people asking them what to do, waiting to be given orders, drains them of energy. They come to me to be rejuvenated. To them, being in a position where they not only don’t have to give orders, but are forced to obey them is sweet release.”

She stopped, curled her fingers around the back of the chair. “You understand, don’t you, that this is all theater. There’s nothing real about it, except as it exists in their minds.”

“You hold no malice toward them.”

“Quite the opposite, I . . .” Milla Tamirova broke off and, relinquishing her position, walked to where Alli still stood in front of the chair. “What happened to you, child?”

Without taking her eyes from the chair, Alli clamped her lips together.

The older woman took Alli’s hand in hers, but as she began to move it toward the chair, Alli jerked it away. Milla Tamirova then reached out and put her own hand on the chair arm.

“Can you do that?”

Alli shook her head.

Milla Tamirova sat in the chair, her hands lying along the arms. “Touch my hand, child. Just my hand.”

Alli hesitated.

“Please.”

Taking a deep breath, Alli placed her hand over Milla Tamirova’s. She began to have trouble breathing.

“I’m going to take my hand away,” the older woman said. “Do you understand?”

Alli, her eyes wide with terror, nodded.

Slowly and gently Milla Tamirova slid her hand out from under Alli’s. For a moment, Alli’s hand remained hovering above the gleaming wood and leather. Then, closing her eyes, shuddering with fear, she let her hand drop. With the touch of the cool wood came a terrifying vision of Morgan Herr’s repulsively handsome face, the evil words whispered in her ear.

“Open your eyes. Now look at me.” Milla Tamirova smiled. “It’s all right, yes? You’re here with me. Everything is fine, isn’t it?”

Alli barely found the strength to nod.

“Now—” Milla Tamirova rose. “Why don’t you sit where I was sitting?”

Alli felt her gorge rising, she was gripped by a kind of panic that throbbed behind her eyes, that threatened to take over her entire being.

“It’s important for you to sit in the chair.”

“I . . . I can’t.”

Milla Tamirova engaged Alli’s eyes. “As of this moment, you’re ruled by your fear. Unless you face it, unless you conquer it, you’ll live in fear the rest of your life.”

Alli felt paralyzed, completely powerless. It was as if she had once again been stripped of conscious volition.

“And then,” the older woman continued, “whoever did this to you, whoever abused you will have won.” She smiled. “We can’t have that, child, can we?”

“It’s too much,” Alli said, breathless. “I can’t.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” Milla Tamirova surveyed Alli’s pale, sweating face. “In here, you’re in full control. You’re the one who decides whether or not to sit in the chair.”

“I want to leave.”

Milla Tamirova lifted an arm. “Leave, then.” Her smile was rueful. “No one can make you do what you don’t want to do.” Alli was in the doorway when she added,“Without knowing it, you’ve made the memory sacred, you must understand that.”

Alli looked at her without seeing, her eyes watching something that had already happened, someone who was dead now. “The memory is profane.”

“And that is precisely where religion fails us.” Milla Tamirova’s hand seemed to caress the thick arm of the vile chair. “Memory cannot distinguish between the sacred and the profane, because it annihilates time. What was profane in the past memory makes sacred in the present.” The fingers—long, stark, bloodred at their ends—seemed, like memory itself, to have a life of their own. “This is the only possible explanation for why you hold on to your fear, why you cannot let it go.”

“Control,” Alli whispered. “That’s what I want.”

“It’s what we all want, child.” She paused for a moment, then walked toward Alli.

At that precise moment, as if they were two cars heading toward one another, Alli passed by her so closely she could smell Milla Tamirova’s pleasant, earthy scent.

Alli lowered herself into the chair, her arms placed where the older woman’s had been moments before. Her heart beat so hard it was almost painful, and she felt as if she were on fire, as if at any moment she would spontaneously combust. But gradually she became aware that what she felt was a seething energy that coincided or perhaps was the aftermath of the cresting of her terror. She felt the chair beneath her buttocks and thighs, her elbows and wrists. She looked at the restraints and they were just pieces of leather and metal, they weren’t talismans of voodoo or black magic that forced her back into that week of despair and fear. At least for the time being, that memory became manageable instead of overwhelming. Still, she couldn’t look at it for long without feeling blinded or perhaps plunged into a darkness beyond all comprehension.

She got up from the chair because she wanted to, because she could. She still felt her flesh tingling where it had made contact with the wood through her clothes.

“Would you like some tea?” Milla Tamirova asked. Her face held an expression that might have been tenderness or even solace, that Alli couldn’t quite digest. “Or perhaps something stronger to celebrate your small victory.”

“Where’s my father?” Alli said.

“You said you need his protection. From what—or should I say, from whom?”

“Nothing,” Alli said. “I lied because I was afraid you wouldn’t see me otherwise.”

Milla Tamirova frowned. “You were probably right. Not that it matters, I don’t think it would be a good idea for you—”

“I want to see him.”

“I understand.” Milla Tamirova shook her head. “But your father is a very dangerous man, there’s no telling how he’ll react to the news that he has an illegitimate daughter. Better for you to stay away.”

“Okay, you’ve done your duty, consider me warned.”

Milla Tamirova closed the door to the dungeon behind them as they walked out into the hallway. “You just took a first step, that’s all it was. Don’t mistake it for a silver bullet. You have a long, dark journey ahead of you.”

Alli would not meet her penetrating gaze. She wished she understood; she’d rather bite her tongue than admit she didn’t.

“I wish you’d take my advice, even though you don’t like me.”

“That’s not true,” Alli said, “or, at least, it isn’t now.”

“I appreciate your candor.” Once again, the rueful smile played across Milla Tamirova’s lips. “You still won’t take my advice, will you?”

Alli shook her head. “Where is he holed up?”

“Excellent choice of words.” Milla Tamirova swept them both across the living room to the front door. “That would be his brand-new dacha, just outside the city. Here’s the address.” She pulled the door open. “Go to him, then. Perhaps you’ll be in time for the christening.”